Woodworking and other crafts often require the use of complex joinery techniques to join two or more work-pieces together. For instance, a woodworker might use one or more of mitered joints, finger joints, mortise-and-tenon joints, dovetail joints, or other types of joints to join two or more pieces of wood together. Many amateur and even professional craftsmen find it challenging, or at least time consuming, to accurately cut the elements in the work-pieces necessary for these joints.
Fortunately, cutting guides are available to help the craftsman accurately and (relatively) quickly cut many of these joints using power cutting tools. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,428,408, issued Oct. 5, 1981 to Kenneth M. Grisley, discloses a dovetailing jig used to support and guide a router for cutting a variety of dovetail joints. In one embodiment, the dovetailing jig of the '408 patent includes a plurality of guide fingers, the sides of which interact with a bushing extending from the router's base to guide the movements of the router with respect to a work-piece. In use, a forward portion of the router's base rests on and is supported by top faces of the guide fingers. In some instances, the guide fingers may only be partially supporting the forward portion of the router base, and the craftsman may need to exercise caution to keep the router from tipping backwards during use. In some instances, it may be important to keep the router from tipping during use to ensure that the joint elements are accurately cut.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,711,356, issued Jan. 27, 1998 to Mr. Grisley as well, discloses a finger joint template that includes a plurality of guide fingers that both guide the movement of a router while at the same time at least partially support forward portions of the router base. Again, in some embodiments of the '356 patent, it may be necessary to exercise caution to ensure that the router does not tip during use.
Another concern for woodworkers and other craftsmen is dust control. The use of power woodworking tools often creates a large amount of dust and debris, which can potentially be hazardous to the woodworker's health, and also a chore to clean-up. It is known to use vacuum devices to help collect the dust and debris created during woodworking, and it is known to use such vacuum devices with cutting guides. Many of these previous cutting guide/vacuum device combinations are inefficient, however, because previous cutting guides have not positioned the intake of the vacuum device proximate to the cutter of the cutting tool during use.